In our modern world of work international cooperation in various fields has become increasingly important. Especially in the European work context new challenges constantly arise for our future workforce – the trainees and graduates of schools all over Europe. Given the situation, communication across borders gets more and more important to enable students and trainees to communicate effectively in the European context. Apart from a solid foundation in education and technical skills, intercultural competence and communication skills in English are keys to success – both economically as well as socially. This project aims at preparing its participants to cope with these challenges in the best possible way: through a tri-national scholastic cooperation where specialist teams from each school cooperate in exchanging their respective ideas and expertise. The task to be managed is to conceptualize and construct a pinball machine as a mechatronic system. These are the steps: First, the German school will provide the setting for a joint creative brainstorming in coming up with a viable concept and the necessary steps to be realized. Our school will be in charge of the mechanical components, whereas the Czech school will be responsible for the electronic components and the Polish school will be in control of the programming work. Hence, 10 participants of each school need to be carefully selected according to the respective profile tasks. Moreover, we need to ensure that all participants have a solid command of English since it is the language to communicate with one another both orally and in writing. The success of the project relies on the students’ and teachers’ exchange of ideas and concepts about the progress as well as difficulties that may arise on the way in English. This shall be done in direct communication during the exchanges and virtually via eTwinning in the phases in between. Communication via eTwinning is of crucial importance to guarantee follow-ups and to document the various stages of the project for all participants. The project will consist of 4 short-term exchanges in which the groups will bring in and share their competences in the fields of mechanics (German), electrical engineering (Czech) and programming (Polish). The creativity of all students is strongly encouraged and will be fostered in the methods selected to manage the tasks. In between the exchanges the necessary milestones that the teams agreed upon will be realized in the respective schools and their workshops. Each student will be part of a project group that will meet on a regular basis to discuss and inform the others about the next steps. The project’s reward and result will be 3 pinball machines identical in construction (but not in design) – one for each school – that can be shown and presented at the schools’ open days and fairs as a model of best practice for successful European cooperation and partnership. This will ensure long lasting and sustainable benefits for each school and will be a living proof of the motto “Together for Europe!”
IIn the modern world of work, cooperations are growing together more and more internationally. Especially in the European context, this results in new demands on the trainees of today as the skilled workers of tomorrow: Communication with European partners is becoming increasingly important, foreign language competence and intercultural competence are essential foundations for economic success in addition to sound technical knowledge. The aim of the project was to prepare the young people for these changed requirements in the best possible way by setting a trinational cooperation in which experts from three school locations cooperated for various activities. The task was to design and manufacture a "pinball" as a mechatronic system. By "gaming" a complex technical system, it was possible to keep the participants at a high level of motivation. The joint work of all participating young people consolidated the project goal of cooperation across linguistic and geographical borders. After a joint creative conception phase, the German school took care of the mechanical components and prepared the first mobility accordingly (creation of work plans and technical drawings), followed by the Czech school for the electronic components and the Polish school for programming the display. Accordingly, the 10 participants at each of the three school locations were selected according to this professional profile. In addition, all participants had to have sufficient foreign language skills (English) to enable communication with the partners. The project provided for a total of 4 short-term exchanges, in which the groups contributed their individual skills and competences from the fields of mechanics, electrical engineering and programming. In addition, the project methodologically placed particular emphasis on the creativity of the participants. In all encounters, special methodological attention was paid to forming international groups both during leisure activities and during the work phases, as the support team recognized that the young people wanted to work with the same nationality. This mix of nationalities was well achieved by the supervisors and was therefore a valuable element in achieving the project goals. The success of the project was also based on intensive communication via eTwinning, especially during the phases between project meetings, as the interfaces between the components must always be clearly defined and exchanged. A few times adjustments had to be made here, as not all project goals could always be achieved on site during the meetings. During the meeting phases, the steps agreed in the working meetings were implemented at the three locations. In order to structure the regular project work here as well, all participants committed themselves to the cooperation within the framework of additional AG ́s (working group). A scheduling difficulty arose from the fact that the first mobility had to be postponed by 6 months due to the pandemic. As a result, some project participants were unfortunately unable to actively witness the successful completion of the project due to their final examination at the vocational school. After all, this offered the opportunity to inspire younger interested parties for the project and to win participants for further international encounters. As a result, an identical "pinball" was created for each school, which can then be used on site as a best-practice example for European cooperation and can be used, for example, in the context of trade fairs. This also ensures sustainable benefits for school communities. The first exhibitions have already taken place. The young people proudly presented "their" pinball machine and reported on their experiences during the two-year project phase. In addition, a detailed project documentation (3 photo books, technical drawings, ...) completes the demanding project. The originally planned building instructions could not be realized in detail due to time constraints. All results (minutes, programme plans, sketches, online votes, photo books, ...) were documented in detail on eTwinning in TWINSPACE. Unfortunately, the platform is no longer accessible to us due to technical problems. The file structure stored there is stored in the "Attachments".